None of Your Business
by Equipoise
Summary: Lust and trust wage war as Cranky but Woobie Mr. Gold tries to find a balance between business and pleasure with Silver-spoon Spitfire Belle. No FTL, No curse (at this point). Modern Day Rumbelle Businessman! AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Chestnuts Roasting**...

Angus Gold hated parties. Loathed them. Detested them with every fibre of his being. While he exceeded at social politicking, he had never found much need for interaction outside of an office setting. But 'twas the season and he needed to make nice in hopes old St. Nick would take pity on his latest merger. All his life he'd been turning lumps of coal into diamonds, applying just enough pressure with the right amount of patience. Then that bitch Regina had taken half his client list out from under him when she absconded. He should have known that blood would out. Cora's daughter had been an excellent apprentice when she started. After college, a rebellious Regina was all too happy to go to work for the man that pissed off dear old Mom. Unfortunately, time had hardened Cora and softened Regina. It took only a few words of poison dripped into Regina's willing ear and Angus's carefully built infrastructure was splintered from within.

Oh, he had a failsafe or two, of course he did. This deal with Moe French was one of them - hence the flight to Boston in this wretched weather. So, here he stood on the doorstep of a large, handsome brownstone, in his second-best tuxedo. He held an exceedingly expensive bottle of wine in one hand and his cane in the other. Before ringing the bell, he took a moment to compose himself. Regina's trifling with his work would not go unpunished, of that he was sure. Tonight, however, he had to remember how to be charming. He had been once, after all. Cora was ambitious in her youth, but she would not have fallen so easily into his life (and his bed) without a little finesse.

He squared his shoulders and used the handle of his cane to press the buzzer. A plump, pleasant-looking woman in a linen uniform and what appeared to be reindeer antlers opened it. She smiled warmly at him and offered to take his coat. He gave it to her and she promised that Moe French would be right down. He realized with an unpleasant shudder that he was the first to arrive. As the housekeeper (maid?) led him into a sitting room, he took in the garish decorations adorning each wall. The house was positively covered in tinsel and wreathes. Popular music he vaguely recognized as having a Holiday theme crooned from small speakers set into various nooks. The most appalling of all was the giant tree that loomed nearly to the ceiling, set close to the back of the room. It was ringed with flickering lights and weighed down in every direction with baubles that glinted and sparkled.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. French may not have an iota of good taste but he ran a damn fine business and Angus was here in a show of good faith. He would compliment the crass finery, have a drink, listen to the cheesy music and shuffle off to his hotel as quickly as could be considered polite. He drew the line at sampling the fruitcake that took center stage on the table. Experience had taught him to avoid that unholy confection.

The uniformed woman re-appeared and offered him a glass of wine. He accepted gladly and took a seat as far from the tree as he could find, setting the wine bottle on the table. The song changed and for a moment he thought of many, many Christmases ago when trees and wreaths and all that good cheer had not seemed so trite and hollow. The song that played now had played in his own house once, and he could almost hear the small, high-pitched voice that had tried to sing along…

"Angus!" A male voice with a distinctive Australian accent broke through his reverie and he was both disappointed and grateful for the interruption. Moe stood half a head over him, wearing an elegant tuxedo with a red tie that lit up in the middle. He held a drink on one hand and stretched the other in front of him, in greeting.

Angus rose and took the extended hand. "Moe. Always a pleasure."

Moe laughed as they shook hello. "You're a rotten liar, Gold. You look like the cat spat you up and then dragged you here."

"My apologies. I got in rather late last night and I'm afraid I did not get much sleep." What little sleep he did get had been a drunken stupor, but he would omit that fact.

Moe clapped him on the shoulder and Angus tried not to flinch. "Whatever the circumstances, I'm glad I finally got you out here for one of my world famous soirees! "

Angus glanced around the empty room. "Yes, it seems quite… festive."

"You're early, my friend. It won't get busy until at least 9 or 10. Everyone loves to be fashionably late in the city. I see Marcia already got you a drink. Wonderful woman. My little girl and I wouldn't know what to do without her. Well, not so little anymore, my girl. Have you met my Belle?"

"Not in person. She was away at school the last time I was in town, if I remember correctly. However, I believe that since she graduated, my assistants and I have exchanged more emails with her than with yourself. " Angus smiled thinly. Moe's daughter had taken on quite a good deal of her father's workload after she finished graduate school. He was very familiar with her environmentally conscious email signature and her propensity for florid language. In all, she seemed to have a good enough head on her shoulders, even for someone hired through obvious nepotism. Moe's business had flourished in the past few years and he had a sneaking suspicion that little Miss French may have had a hand in that development.

"Ah, well she'll be here tonight, with her young man. I'm not ashamed to say, I think she's made an excellent choice there. They were both at the top of their class at Harvard. She won out for Valedictorian, of course, but I've heard that Grayson gave her a run for her money!" Moe laughed again and took a long sip of the amber liquid he was swirling in the crystal glass before continuing.

Angus gave as interested a look as he could muster. As Moe rambled on about his progeny's stunning accomplishments, Angus's mind kept wandering pleasantly back to the wee hours of the morning. His foray to a local bar had taken a rather unexpected turn the night before. If there was time before his plane left, he fully intended to stop in that same bar once more. Moe's galloping monologue was finally halted as they heard the front door open and shut.

"Papa? Are you in here?" A female voice, also Australian, echoed into the parlor. Gold shifted his weight so he was relying less obviously on his cane for support.

"In the parlor, sweetheart." Moe called back. "Our first guest has arrived."

"Oh? Really? And I'm not even half presentable… Grayson is parking the car. I was going to run up to my old room and… " Her voice trailed off as she entered the room, hands busily tucking her messy curls into an up-do. Her eyes went wide as she saw him and her hands paused in mid-air. She was a vision in champagne colored satin, fitted perfectly to her curves and slit just high enough to showcase a set of truly remarkable legs.

Angus swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. Her accent was different, her clothes far more expensive, and her makeup less pronounced. Yet, he would know her in a heartbeat even if he were blind and deaf. He knew what those sinuous legs felt like wrapped around his waist. He knew the sounds she made at the height of her pleasure. Right now, he could read the panic in her gaze, saw her lower lip tremble. He blinked rapidly and opened his mouth to speak but Belle recovered first.

"Hello, you must be a business associate of my father's. I'm Belle French." She reached for his hand and he gave it dumbly.

"Your… your father speaks very highly of you."

"Well, don't believe everything he tells you. I promise I did not invent sliced bread or penicillin." She smiled winningly, wrapping an arm around her father's much larger one.

That surprised a genuine laugh out of him and the initial shock abated. "I have seen quite a few of your emails, actually. I think the praise is like to be well earned."

She blushed prettily at that and he felt a glimmer of self-satisfaction. "I'm afraid I didn't catch your name?"

"That's because I didn't throw it." He cringed immediately after the words left his mouth but Belle laughed lightly. "It's Angus Gold."

"Oh! Yes, we have spoken quite a bit, haven't we? You always sign your emails as A. Gold, I think, right?"

He nodded.

"Well, it's very nice to meet you at last, Angus." She rolled his name around in her mouth as though she hadn't been screaming it the night before. An agreeable shiver ran up his spine with the memory.

"Wonderful to finally meet in the flesh, Miss French." He caught and held her gaze until she blushed again and looked away.

"Call me Belle, please." She turned to her father. "Papa, I hope you'll excuse me while I finish getting ready. Grayson will be along any moment so you boys can talk football to your hearts' content." She placed a light kiss on her father's cheek and, avoiding Angus's eyes, walked out of the room.

He released a long, slow breath. Tonight had suddenly become a lot more interesting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Silver Bells...**

_(The night before)_

Belle French was the apple of her father's eye. She was his sweet, perfect angel. She went to just the right school and got all the right grades. She was dating the right man. She wore the right dresses (by only the right designers) and almost always said the right thing. In short, Belle French was bored out of her fucking skull.

When Grayson told her he had to go out of town just before her father's big Christmas party, Belle saw an opportunity for adventure. Moe would be far too busy with planning to worry what his dainty little daughter might be doing. Not to mention that he would assume she was curled safely in Grayson's bed with a book in her hands. Belle loved a good book. Books took her places she could only ever dream about otherwise. She could fight glorious battles and frolic with fairies, or just spend a day outside of this drab, bourgeois existence. Yet books were not real life and every story eventually came to an end. Belle longed to find an escape outside of their pages.

So, the night before the party, she visited one of those stores that she would never be caught dead in by any of her college chums. She darkened her makeup and teased up her hair and slid her well-toned body into a slinky, glittery little number that revealed more than it hid. The thigh high stockings with the lace tops and the little black garter belt were the finishing touch. It all felt wonderfully, deliciously wrong.

This close to a holiday, most places would be pretty deserted, and she took a risk of being recognized if she went anywhere familiar. So she went a little further into town. There were some decent places by the airport that would suit. It was exciting and terrifying to strut into that little bar on her too-tall heels. All eyes flew to her long legs and sleek curves. The shy schoolgirl in her froze momentarily, but every femme fatale she had ever read came flooding to mind. Before she knew it, she was tossing back shots bought by businessmen with watery eyes and gleaming wedding rings they were trying to hide.

She had learned to play pool in a common room of her campus. The mathematics of the game had always been appealing. Even with the alcohol buzzing in her veins, the angles were simple to line up. Pretty soon, she had a decent sized wad of cash building up beside her. A few more drinks in, she decided it was time to call it quits and stumbled to the bar to cash out. Surprisingly, her tab had been paid. An older gentlemen with a dark suit and a cane in one hand tilted his head in acknowledgement of her gratitude.

"You didn't have to do that." For further anonymity, she forced herself into an American accent. It felt stranger on her tongue than the tequila had, but it seemed safer this way.

"No matter." The man had a distinct accent of his own and her fuzzy mind raced to place it.

She gestured with a fistful of dollars as she pulled herself onto a neighboring stool. "I can buy your next drink, if you like." He tilted his head and looked at her curiously. She noticed that his hair brushed his lapels, incongruously long to the fastidiousness of his attire. She immediately liked that about him, though she could not quite say why. She also liked the fact that his large, dark eyes never strayed from her face. The attention she attracted all night was intentional, but she was starting to feel like a piece of meat under so many hungry gazes.

The bartender stopped to ask them if they wanted anything and the man ordered a whiskey, neat. Belle smiled and placed a $20 on the bar triumphantly. He turned back to face her. "Thank you, Miss…?"

She had been giving out different names all evening (and a few different phone numbers that she hoped were disconnected). She glanced down at her crossed legs, the synthetic fabric riding high enough to reveal the decorative stocking-top.

"I'm… Lacey. And you are?" She extended her hand in greeting.

"Angus."

Angus took her hand and brushed a kiss to the top. His slight stubble tickled. Belle flushed a little at both the courtly gesture and the feeling of his warm lips. Unexpected tingles ran up from her arm and down her body, settling at her core. Even in this advanced state of inebriation, she recognized that she was attracted to him. She hadn't the slightest idea how to proceed from here.

It had been a very long time since she was on the market. Grayson had snapped her up back in college and since he was good looking and intelligent, she had not objected. She had always had more of an affinity for fictional characters than real people. When a boy her father approved of decided to make her his girlfriend, it made life easier for her. She had a date to every garden party and it made her father very proud- Grayson was from a top family and got excellent grades. He was on sports teams and spoke articulately about politics. He read only for school and seemed annoyed by her habit of quoting literature when talking about real life but he always forgave her because she was his flawless little turtledove.

Thinking of Grayson now made her stomach turn. He was so careful with her, so meticulous. She could have timed his foreplay to the minute. He usually made some effort to bring her off but she was not always excited enough to find release, so she faked it to assuage his ego. She wondered idly if Angus would be so predictable...

Not that she was that kind of girl. She had gone out to have a good time and play the part of the bad girl, but she didn't pick up random strangers in seedy bars. Still, a little flirting could do no harm. She rested her hand on top of his. "Thank you, Angus. It's nice to see there are some gentlemen left in the world."

He chuckled slightly. "If you see one around here, let me know, lass. I'll be sure to steer clear."

She gave a surprised giggle. "Well, you paid for my drinks for a whole night without even knowing my name. How is that not at least somewhat chivalrous?"

He shrugged and sipped at his whiskey. "You put on a good show at the pool table over there. I thought someone ought to tip you for it."

She felt the color rising in her cheeks. "Oh. Well. If that's all it is, then I suppose I'd better leave you to your voyeurism and be on my way." She huffed indignantly as she slid off the stool. The ground was a little too close in those shoes; she stumbled and blushed even harder at the loss of dignity. Feeling rather humiliated, she shuffled to the door.

She had just exited the bar and was determined to hail a cab when she heard a voice behind her calling.

"Lacey! Wait. Please."

When she did not turn, a firm hand grasped her bare arm. She whirled to face him, reaching into her little purse for her pepper spray. It was Angus, looking a little more disheveled than he had at the bar and very disappointed.

"What do you want? I'm going home and if you try to keep me here, I will scream."

Angus released her arm quickly and splayed his free hand in front of himself – a gesture of surrender. The other hand still held tight to his cane and her eyes flicked over it every few moments so that she would see movement if he decided to use it as a weapon.

"I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean… That's not why I did what I did. I just…" He screwed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.

The cold air was licking at her limbs and starting to seep through her dress, Belle shivered and shifted her weight. "Look, it's fine, ok? You don't know me. I don't know you. I appreciate you picking up my tab- whatever the reason."

Instead of replying, Angus removed his wool overcoat and wrapped it around her slender shoulders. She thought to reject the offer, but it was too damn cold and no cabs had come by yet. He was not much taller than she was, but the coat was more than sufficient to shield her from the wind.

"Thank you."

Angus flexed his free hand at his side and nodded. "If you like, I can have my driver take you home. He's on his way. I'll wait here if… if you don't…"

"Your driver?"

He nodded again. "Not my regular driver, but he seems efficient enough. I'm only in town for a few days. Should be here any minute."

"So, you don't pick up girls in bars like this all the time?"

He looked pained. "I wasn't trying to pick you up." She looked at him quizzically and he relented. " I'd be lying if I said I hadn't noticed you and quite enjoyed your presence tonight. But I'd never expect… " He shook his head, the words trailing off into the winter night.

"Then why pay for my drinks?"

She could have sworn his cheeks turned a little pinker in the dim streetlight. His voice was a little gruff when he answered, but he met her eyes unflinchingly. "Honestly? I didn't want anyone else to pick up the bill and try to make you feel… obligated."

She sidled closer (for warmth, she told herself). "Obligated? Isn't that rather old-fashioned?"

"Many men still are. They see a beautiful woman such as yourself and think that they can take advantage. I overheard a few of the men at the bar talking and, well, it just seemed the easiest way to avoid unpleasantness."

She smirked. "So you are chivalrous after all. Maybe not so much in word as in deed."

"Chivalry is dead, Lacey. I just don't like to see an innocent exploited." He shrugged.

She was mere inches away from him now. She had not even noticed herself moving, but they were so close she could feel his breath as he spoke. He smelled like cinnamon. She leaned in, instinctively. His pupils dilated and his Adam's apple bobbed but his eyes remained on hers.

"Do I look innocent?" She purred, happy to feel back in control and powerfully seductive.

"Yes." The word was whispered in a shaky breath but it took all the wind once more out of her sails.

"Oh." She drew back a little, though they still stood toe to toe.

"Not the answer you were looking for, I take it."

"I was hoping for dangerous or sexy… something like that." She fought the urge to pout.

He gave a wicked half-smile. "You can't hide who you are, even behind all that makeup. You look like a lost lamb trying to dress up in wolf's clothing."

She was about to reply when a long black car pulled up in front of them. Angus opened the back door and gestured. It felt oddly natural to climb in and slide across the seat. He dipped down to wish her goodnight but she patted the seat next to her. "Come on, Angus. No point in you waiting here. Get in."

He got in a little awkwardly, arranging his cane to one side. "Where to, then?"

Belle settled back in the seat and gave him a slow smile. "Where are you staying?"

His brows rose but he gave the driver the order to drop them both at his hotel.

Belle felt the blood pumping in her veins, the adrenaline of victory coursed through her. She'd show him how much of the wolf remained in these clothes.


End file.
